1506. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 166–168.
[London]
Friday– [19 January 1844] [1]
My dearest friend I shall be able to write only a line,—very literally as you command,—for Mrs Orme has come to spend the day here & an hour or two of it with me. A Mr Anderson of Brighton was the successful candidate at Lincoln’s Inn; [2] & as he also is a Puseyite, I am sorry that his star shone brighter for the occasion, than your friend Mr Harness’s. Except by comparison, I cannot wish these Puseyites “good speed” [3] in the matter of preacherships, let them be ever such amiable or intellectual or devout men. First truth, & then Plato. I even say, & have ventured to say to dear Mr Kenyon long ago, .. “First truth, & then toleration.” His “Rhymes on tolerance” did, with all their high instincts, lose sight somewhat of the essential dignity of the Thing Believed, in the universal levelling of creeds before a ubiquitous liberality. [4] Toleration shd be as wide as Truth,—but not higher.
My dearest friend,—not to fall away from you into dissertations, .. I must say, if ever so hastily, that I rejoice in the adhesion to you of these disinterested friends,—to save you from despair of the Human Nature near you. Yes, they are disinterested. And they are old friends,—that is a hopeful point: and I do not doubt, .. as far as my thoughts can grope over your evidence, .. that the garden will flourish under a new reign, [5] & that, after a while, this great & bitter evil may be smoothed over in your experience. Ah, dearest Miss Mitford! “you did not ask all the questions you shd have done”, … & you struggle, even by those words, to acquire for the guilty, some less humiliating position!– How cd she deceive your generosity? how cd she look in your face, & bear to do it? The more generously credulous you, .. the more guilty, she,—the more indignant I must be!–
I confess to you that my own belief I gave to your hands, as far as possible,—so that you shd mould it by yours, in respect to the first “fytte” of the story. [6] There were circumstances about that narrative, which,—as I confessed to you at the moment,—struck me as strange & unnatural; [7] & it was only by a strong effort & a resolution to follow your lead in believing, that I accomplished any passive degree of faith. It was unnatural, .. that desire for silence, & that sinking of a father’s name by a child’s cradle!—& the credulity of your generous affection shd have been afterwards holier to her, than the pyx on the altar.
After all, I have a lingering sort of hope that there may be a marriage. [8] When he finds you resolved to do without him, he may find also that he cant do without you,—& so marry her for love of you. What do you say to my speculation?
Now I must end. By this sign, [9] know that I think of you much & truly.
I saw the death in the paper. [10] May God comfort the living!–
Your most affectionate EBB.
May I ask if the matter was betrayed to you accidentally, .. or by a third person—or by any extenuating burst of feeling on her own part?– But do not mind answering this question, shd you prefer not doing so—I wont ask it again. Mr Kenyon is gone out of town “for a day or two” according to his <***>
Address: Miss Mitford / Three Mile Cross / Near Reading.
Publication: EBB-MRM, II, 377–378.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. This letter is postmarked 21 January 1844, a Sunday.
2. On 12 January, the Rev. James Stuart Murray Anderson was elected Preacher of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn.
3. Genesis, 24:12.
4. Kenyon’s Rhymed Plea for Tolerance was published in 1833. EBB’s copy of the second edition (1839) appeared in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A1362).
5. Having dismissed Ben Kirby, Miss Mitford is seeking a new gardener. Further discussion of the Kirby/K. liaison and their concealment of the truth from Miss Mitford takes place in several of the following letters to Miss Mitford.
6. A fit or fytte is a canto or section of a poem. EBB refers to her comments at the time of K.’s first confinement, in March 1843 (see letters 1198 and 1207).
7. Cf. Hamlet, I, 5, 28.
8. When K. did marry, in 1851, it was not to Ben Kirby, the father of her children, but to Sam Sweetman, the new gardener/handyman.
9. A reference to Constantine’s vision of a cross in the sky, bearing the words “by this sign shalt thou conquer.”
10. Miss Walker’s death on 16 January, at age 24, was reported in The Times on 17 January.
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